Chapter 3: APPLICATION AND PRACTICE

43) How does one tell the difference
between the Holy Spirit and the ego?

We begin with a statement from the Course.
It comes in "The Test of Truth" in Chapter 14 of the text, and is the answer
to this question, given in the context of discerning between the "dark
lessons" of the ego and the "bright lessons" of the Holy Spirit:

You have one test, as sure
as God, by which to recognize if what you learned is true. [1 ] If
you are wholly free of fear of any kind, and [2] if all those who meet
or even think of you share in your perfect peace, then you can be sure
that you have learned God's lesson, and not your own (T-14.XI.5:1-2).

In other words, Jesus is providing his
students with two criteria with which to evaluate whether they have chosen
the ego or himself as their teacher. The first deals only with individual
students, whether or not they are at peace. The second involves other people,
those who live and work with us, not to mention everyone else. We
all would have to admit that it is relatively simple to delude ourselves
into thinking we have chosen the Holy Spirit, when in truth we have chosen
our own specialness. But it is more difficult to fool other people, especially
those who know us well and who see us regularly over periods of time. Incidentally,
students of A Course in Miracles sometimes wonder if that second
criterion would have to exclude Jesus, since obviously the biblical figure
(who, by the way, should never be taken for the historical Jesus
-- see question 52 ) was crucified by angry people who quite clearly did
not "share in [his] perfect peace." However, one should understand this
situation to mean that people may experience your perfect peace, but may
be so threatened by it that they try to attack it and you. But they could
not be doing so had they not first experienced this peace as authentic,
and then become threatened by it.

This test of truth is applicable to
students over the long run because, again, it is difficult to fool others
and even oneself over a period of time. However, in any given instant when
one wishes to know which teacher has been consulted, it is almost impossible
to know for certain. As all students of A Course in Miracles already
know, and as we have already commented, the ego can quite deceptively pose
like the Holy Spirit. Given the tremendous investment all people in this
world have in maintaining their specialness, it should come as no surprise
that this would be so. In this very important passage, Jesus cautions his
students about underestimating the power their specialness has to mask
the Holy Spirit's Voice. It is from one of the major sections in the text
that deals specifically with the treacherous nature of specialness:

You are not special. If you
think you are, and would defend your specialness against the truth of what
you really are, how can you know the truth? What answer that the Holy Spirit
gives can reach you, when it is your specialness to which you listen, and
which asks and answers. Its tiny answer, soundless in the melody that pours
from God to you eternally in loving praise of what you are, is all you
listen to. And that vast song of honor and of love for what you are seems
silent and unheard before its "mightiness. " You strain your ears
to hear its soundless voice, and yet the Call of God Himself is soundless
to you.

You can defend your specialness,
but never will you hear the Voice for God beside it (T-24.II.4:1-5:1,
italics ours).

Therefore, our response to this question
is to state, that because of students' over-identification with their egos,
it is really the wrong question to ask. Rather, the focus should be on
eliminating the interference to hearing the Holy Spirit's Voice,
which would then simply allow the Voice for God to be Itself. Thus, the
question should be: "Why don't I practice the forgiveness lessons the Holy
Spirit asks me to do so that I can better hear His Voice?" With this
new question, the focus is now shifted to eliminating the problem so that
the Answer can be given us. As Jesus exhorts his students:

Your task is not to seek for
love [or hear the Holy Spirit's Voice], but merely to seek and find all
of the barriers within yourself that you have built against it. It is not
necessary to seek for what is true, but it is necessary to seek
for what is false (T-I6.IV.6:1-2).

And returning to "The Test of Truth," we
find Jesus making the same point to his students who despair over being
able to actually hear the Holy Spirit, given the strength of their investment
in their ego's "dark lessons":

Do not be concerned about how
you can learn a lesson so completely different from everything that you
have taught yourself. How would you know? Your part is very simple.
You need only recognize that everything you learned you do not want. Ask
to be taught, and do not use your experiences to confirm what you have
learned. When your peace is threatened or disturbed in any way, say to
yourself:

I do not know what anything,
including this, means. And so I do not know how to respond
to it. And I will not use my own past learning as
the light to guide menow.

By this refusal to attempt to teach yourself
what you do not know, the Guide Whom God has given you will speak to you.
He will take His rightful place in your awareness the instant you abandon
it, and offer it to Him (T-14.XI.6).

The primary focus of Jesus' Course is always
on removing the interferences to the awareness of love's presence (T-in.1:7),
and
not on the love itself. And so, once again, the students' focus will
remain on asking Jesus' help to set aside their ego thought system, rather
than on asking him directly for help or guidance with things in the world.
Finally, we cite one important passage in the text that underscores this
major emphasis:

The task of the miracle worker
... becomes
to deny the denial of truth (T-12.II.1:5).

The "denial of truth" is of course the
ego thought system, which denies the truth of God. Our responsibility is
to ask the Holy Spirit's help to "deny" the validity of what the ego teaches,
hereby affirming His truth of the Atonement.

Reproduced with the kind permission of Gloria and
Kenneth
Wapnick and the Foundation for A Course in Miracles